Some clarification for those who post about their paycheck going down.

Ok so Jan. 1 has come and gone, and now you are looking at a paycheck that is lower. Before you get upset and jump up and down how Obama has screwed you, do me a favor and take a long hard look at that paycheck, not just the bottom line of what you take home.

If you look at your last paycheck from last year and your first paycheck from this year, what are the differences in the federal withholdings? There is only 1 change: Social Security (assuming you make under 400K, this post does not apply to you).

If you live in one of the 9 states that does not have income tax, that change in Social Security change should be the only change to your paycheck, and will equal 2% of your pay before taxes.

That said, now look at the rest of your paycheck. Does your state withhold taxes? I pay two state taxes, as I live in one, and work in another. So I have to pay my home-state and local income taxes and my work-state family leave, disability, unemployment, and workforce development taxes. All of these, with the exception of my home-state and local income taxes have an annual maximum. So come mid-year when I have contributed the annual maximum, they no longer withhold these taxes. But come Jan 1, I am responsible for paying them again. So, do you have any state taxes that you were not paying in Dec, that you are now paying in Jan? Perhaps so.

Also, look at your retirement (401K), medical, or life insurance withholdings. Some of these may have annual maximums as well, so come Jan 1, you will have to start contributing to them again.

For me, my take home dropped about $65 a week. However less than a third of that was Social Security, the rest of the deductions are the state taxes that I must contribute to every year, a good chunk of which have annual maximums.

Remember, this is exactly what you were having withheld 2 years ago. If you just entered the workforce within the last two years, I'm sorry, but those are the breaks. You were not having the proper amount of your pay withheld for your Social Security benefits in the first place.

Here is a breakdown of contributions by annual salary for only the Social Security increase.

So if you make $35,000 a year and your paycheck went down more than $13.46 when compared to your paycheck in the last week of December, than you should look to your state taxes or personal withholdings.

If you are still upset, I'm sorry, but I hope this helps direct your anger in the right direction. But remember, it was a holiday, and holidays do not last forever. Otherwise we would call them "everydays".

6. Thanks, that sounds similiar. At any rate, I managed to live on it.

22. The problem is that prices are so much higher now.

Taxes are lower, but people's real income is much lower compared to the cost of everything. That's why people feel so squeezed. That's why it's so easy for right-wing radio to convince people that this must be the fault of the Democrats.

We need a radical socialist labor movement to restore balance. We need to reduce the obscene incomes of the top 1% and let the salaries of the bottom 80% rise.

We need to take a good hard look at Wall Street and ask ourselves if this is really the way that we want to run the country and the world.

24. What I don't understand is why so many people go along with being brainwashed.

This seems so obvious to me. I understand why many people don't march in the streets and visibly protest. They're afraid of losing their jobs. But to actually AGREE with our oppressors? I don't get it.

25. A substantial number of baggers have jobs from privatization.

As that sector continues to build, there will be no calls for socialism or unions from those workers or their employers. The ones I've argued with see liberals and the public sector as their oppressors and denying them a chance to improve their lot in life. And they have a point, when you look from their angle.

Often they are less educated and skilled than those in union and public sector employment. If their boss can get the job carved up so it fits their skill level, while he takes the bulk of the profit, they are loyal to that employer above any other considerations.

They see themselves as victims in the competition with the public sector and organized labor. The innate socialism of the commons is an evil to them. You can't undo an entire generation with a lack of education on the labor movement and their philosophy of self-interest, their libertarian beliefs.

They consider public functions as costing them money by taxing them, giving that money to those who they see as elitist, with benefits, steady work and retirement as public workers and unions often have. It is a matter of envy and resentment.

They are not brainwashed, they are the survivors of Reaganomics. And they see people like you and me, Democrats, as frivolous, entitled snobs. That's not my view of the world, but that is where they are coming from as far as I can see.

So we must find common ground, and it's hard since they feel desperate and won't give an inch. IDK how to persuade them when they get a direct reward from what they are doing.

34. Not compared to income. Here's the 1st. paragraph from the 1977 Census on

Household Incomes Report.

"The median money income of households in the United States rose to $13,550 in 1977, a 7-percent increase from the 1976 median income of $12,690. However, almost all of this increase was eroded by rising prices. After adjusting for the 6.5 percent rise in prices between 1976 and 1977, the 1977 median in terms of constant dollars did not show a significant change from the 1976 median."

Mortgage rates averaged 8.9% on a 30 year. Per capita income was a whole $5,730. The per capita income in 2011 was $26,708 or 4.66 times more. Based on that and prices of things in 1977, a gallon of milk should now cost $7.83! (Was $1.68 in '77) and a dozen eggs should be $3.82 and a gallon of gas should be $3.02, exactly what it's selling for here!

9. It sure seems like it was easier for them to let the holiday expire than it was to hold the banks

accountable for stealing much of the rest of the missing money. I say that because the people who make the laws and those who have the most money seem to be doing better than at least 100 million Americans. Many of whom will live and die in poverty never knowing any other opportunity because 1% of the country is taking it for profit.

If they would keep the tyrants from taking more than their share and enabling them to steal from the rest of us and not pay their bills this whole SS conflict over who gets the money would just disappear.

13. Actually St. Raygun doubled it in 1983

The Greenspan commission? doubled SS tax to compensate for the baby boomer retirement. I believe it was supposed to go back to normal after they started retiring. But the GOP has quite enjoyed borrowing from the SS trustfund to compensate for their tax cuts on the rich.

How the Wealthy Took Tax Cuts and Why They Now Want to Clip Social Security.Saturday, December 1st, 2012
Kevin Drum, a political columnist for Mother Jones, writes a brief explanation why Republicans are demanding Social Security be ‘on the table’ for spending cuts. Essentially, Drum explains, Social Security payroll taxes, which are paid primarily by labor and the middle class, went into surplus under Clinton and that allowed for lower income taxes on the wealthy. Going forward income taxes will need to be raised to continue making Social Security solvent because Social Security surpluses were drained by the Bush Tax cuts. So the wealthy now want to renege on replenishing the Social Security trust funds.

Charles Krauthammer is upset that Dick Durbin says Social Security is off the table in the fiscal cliff negotiations because it doesn’t add to the deficit:

This is absurd. In 2012, Social Security adds $165 billion to the deficit. Democrats pretend that Social Security is covered through 2033 by its trust fund. Except that the trust fund is a fiction, a mere “bookkeeping” device, as the Office of Management and Budget itself has written. The trust fund’s IOUs “do not consist of real economic assets that can be drawn down in the future to fund benefits.” Future benefits “will have to be financed by raising taxes, borrowing from the public, or reducing benefits or other expenditures.”

What Krauthammer means is that as Social Security draws down its trust fund, it sells bonds back to the Treasury. The money it gets for those bonds comes from the general fund, which means that it does indeed have an effect on the deficit.

That much is true. But the idea that the trust fund is a “fiction” is absolutely wrong. And since this zombie notion is bound to come up repeatedly over the next few weeks, it’s worth explaining why it’s wrong. So here it is.

Starting in 1983, the payroll tax was deliberately set higher than it needed to be to cover payments to retirees. For the next 30 years, this extra money was sent to the Treasury, and this windfall allowed income tax rates to be lower than they otherwise would have been. During this period, people who paid payroll taxes suffered from this arrangement, while people who paid income taxes benefited.

31. If you make more than the cap would you be pissing and moaning

35. You haven't seen any number of DUers complain against removing/lifting the contribution cap?

It's almost like an article of faith here that if the rich are asked to pay the same proportion of their income in FICA as the rest of us, that the program will be transmogrified into "ZOMG WELFARE!".

No explanation how any other portion of our progressive tax structure doesn't also amount to "ZOMG WELFARE!", however. It's just Social Security which must be sheltered from the horrors of "progressive taxation" (shudder!).

28. Only George Bush tax holidays last forever.

32. So says you.

It'll change. Not quickly, but I feel that it will.

My my repub congress critter can see it. I did not vote for the dude, but he has had some good votes and he listens. He held a town hall, and there were quite a few folks who stated to him that they were not afraid of a tax increase. He listened.